As I've said, there are many wise and insightful words in this book, but I think it should be read with some detachment and discernment. I have a hard time accepting that everything Fr. Rohr describes as a second half quality of life, which resonates with my experience or outlook on life, is a mark of spiritual maturity. I think spiritual maturity can take different forms in different people depending on their personality and the situations with which life confronts them. Rohr's description may be one of them but I wonder if it may be just as much a product of cultural influence as he says the first half of life is. The "container" and its "contents" may not be so easy to distinguish at any stage of life, if such a distinction even makes sense. Maybe that's OK. I think I can live without it. Father Rohr points out, again and again, that there is a path here, through the later years of life, as age and the slings and arrows of existence take their toll, if we pay attention long enough to find the path. It can lead us home, and it can lead us into generativity and contributions to the greater good of society. Great message. Great book. I really, really liked it.

Rohr can’t rectify a loving and just God. His god simply allows and accepts all things and acts (like those of Hitler and Stalin) and just wants people to grow beyond systems and orthodox religion. Offers a refreshing critique of culture – and sometimes church-based values so often imprisoned in a ‘first life’ sensibility . . . Rohr sees the arc of ageing as bewilderingly complex, shifting, unquantifiable and tragic in the truest sense of the word: the art of dying becomes the crowning glory of human life itself, the only route, it seems, to our eternal home. - Manna Magazine Falling upward means, quite simply, casting off the excitement and cravings of youth, as Paul of Tarsus enjoins all those who are commencing the New Life. With that removal of extra gravity pull, we commence our "fall" (relaxing of our cares and attachments), "upwards" - into the Grace which is specific to the Second Phase of Life. Rohr tries to use exceptions to make the rule, in the case of “salvation.” He says that because there are mentally ill people, we can’t believe “any of our theories about the necessity of some kind of correct thinking as the definition of ‘salvation.’” The protagonist lives in an idyllic world, a place where they’re content. Often, they’re a prince or princess, or they have some divine origin they’re unaware of. Then, they leave home on an adventure – an adventure that forces them out of their comfort zone. While on the adventure, they encounter a problem. Whatever the problem is, the process of resolving it makes the hero’s world larger and more open; as a result, the protagonist’s outlook is enlarged and opened, too.Second, there is the title idea of "falling upward". At some point, there is a necessary "fall"--failure, suffering, tragedy. In some sense the first half "container" may have prepared you to face these, and yet is inadequate of itself to do so. It is time, in Rohr's words to "discharge your loyal soldier." It is often in the facing of our fallenness and finiteness and imperfection that we become fully human as we stop trying to be what we are not, and begin to pursue a life of grace, of calling, of wholeness, discovering our True Self. Those who resist "falling upwards" go on in life to become cynical, emptily driven, emotionally detached and judgmental individuals. This is the story of the elder son in the story of the Prodigal. What a difference seven years can make. I recently re-read this book as an anchor point of a silent retreat and it was profoundly helpful to me. For the right person at the right time (anyone wrestling with the sometimes disorienting and isolating elements of passing the existential midpoint of life) this book can be a powerful guide. However, if the dogmatism of my previous review below resonates with you, maybe hold off. ;) Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest who is also an incredibly popular author and speaker. He has been a priest for several decades, and is therefore heavily immersed in spirituality.

The movement from superficiality to living out of the essential self is the promise of the second half. It is what the author calls falling upward into the real, or reality. He writes, “This ‘something real’ is what all the world religions were pointing to when they spoke of heaven, nirvana, bliss, or enlightenment. They were not wrong at all; their only mistake was that they pushed it off into the next world. If heaven is later it is because it is first of all now.” If you welcome the second half of life, this is what you will find: you learn to hear "a deeper voice of God" than you heard before. "It will sound an awful lot like the voices of risk, of trust, of surrender, of soul, of 'common sense,' of destiny, of love, of an intimate stranger, of your deepest self." You can hear this voice in the second half of life precisely because of all the work you did in the first half; your very self is now a container strong enough to hold the call of the intimate stranger. You find that you can let go of things—pain, judgments, even the need to make judgments. You may find that you are reading a lot of poetry; you may find that you are reading the mystics, who seemed opaque to you before. There is a gravitas in this second half of life, writes Rohr, but it is "held up by a much deeper lightness." A Short second reading review: I still think that this is an overall helpful book. But I was more irritated by the platitudes this read. There are wisdom all over this book. The overall theme is a good and important one. But because you sound esoteric, does not mean you are wise. There are lots of instances where I just wish he would speak clearly without so many 'wise' quotes. Some of those quotes really are helpful. Campbell calls this myth “the hero’s journey.” And, as you may have guessed, it’s analogous to our own transition from the first half to the second half of life.What is the terminal velocity? As you have seen above, the free-fall acceleration is constant, which means that the gravitational force acting on an object is constant, too. However, the force of air resistance increases with increasing free fall speed. At some point, the two forces become equal in magnitude. According to Newton's first law, at that point, the falling body stops accelerating and moves at a constant speed. This speed is the terminal velocity. There’s a book called The Second Mountain, another book on purpose that we don’t cover in this round up. But it’s worth pointing out one feature of that book, what gives it its name.

That book was heavily inspired by this one, Falling Upward by Richard Rohr. And in this summary and collection of key takeaways, will uncover why. This is a book for anyone who is facing a very difficult time in his/her life where he/she is trying to make sense of what he/she is feeling and experiencing and not fully understanding what he or she is going through. Richard Rohr explains the duality of life when one is able to move away from their first half life experiences and enter the more contemplative, spiritually-based, and reflective experience of their second half of life. Although any Bible-reading Christian from a non-cult sect would say that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died to pay for the sins of man, Rohr tells us that there is no one theology of Jesus so there can’t be any true theology of Jesus.It is no secret to those who know me well that I have become increasingly dis-enfranchised with my church experience in recent years. Rohr explained for me much of my dissatisfaction within this "upward falling" phenomenon. In fact, his treatment of much of organized religion, although indicting, was also quite gracious. He suggests that "most groups and institutions (including churches) are first-half-of-life structures that are necessarily concerned with identity, boundaries, self-maintenance, self-perpetuation, and self-congratulation". If we recognize this, it guards us from losing hope by having false expectations and expecting, or even demanding, what these groups cannot give. It follows, of course, that to judge or condemn these organizations is proof that we are still likely first-half-of-life people. Rohr goes on to suggest that "in the second-half-of-life, you can actually bless others in what they feel they must do, allow them to do what they must do, challenge them if they are hurting themselves or others - but you can no longer join them in the first half of life." This reflected very closely my recent ability to inwardly bless and wish my best friend success in his recent joining of our church board - the same church board that I recently left for what I now sense are many of the reasons Rohr seems to cover in this book. According to Richard Rohr, our spiritual lives are just like the hero myths. He even takes us through the typical pattern of the heroic journey and compares them to our stages of life. Short review: This is a book about embracing maturity. Age is not maturity, we all know immature people that are advanced in years. Rohr believes that we need to embrace the different parts of life. Our younger years are concerned with identity (what we do, who we marry, etc.). Our older years should be concerned with meaning. So if we properly understand how to mature, we live inside the structures of of life in our younger years and then we learn when to leave the structures of live in our older years. Until we learn to love others as ourselves, it’s difficult to blame broken people who desperately try to affirm themselves when no one else will.” That's not to say there are any easy answers. The greatest sins we can commit are ones of superficiality and blindness. Nothing about life is certain and we have to endure the mysteries of doubt and finally death. That includes a realization of the pain of others, without which we cannot live very humanely.